Description
The restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union, and in the other Stalinist states of Europe, marked an important turning point in history.
The triumphalist optimism that the fall of ‘the Wall’ would usher in a period of global peace and prosperity has long been shattered. However, the accompanying ideological offensive – that ‘socialism’ had supposedly failed – still hangs heavily on the workers’ movement today.
This compilation of articles by Peter Taaffe, arranged in three sections, provides clear answers to those false claims:
● ‘Stalinism, the negation of Bolshevism’ explains how these dictatorial regimes only came to power by wiping out all traces of the genuine Bolshevism that had led the 1917 revolution.
● ‘Why did Stalinism collapse?’ analyses the failure of these bureaucratic regimes, but also why the leadership required to overthrow them, and to build a genuine workers’ democracy, was absent.
● ‘The consequences of Stalinism’s collapse’ examines the rise of the ‘gangster capitalism’ that replaced it, as well as the ideological offensive against socialist ideas which accompanied it.
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